---
title: Tagging Images with DevSpace
sidebar_label: 2. Tag
---

DevSpace always instructs the build engine to tag any images that are being built. By default, DevSpace uses a random string to tag each image. However, you can customize how DevSpace should tag your images.


## `--tag / -t` Flag
One option to tell DevSpace to use one or multiple custom tags is to use the `--tag / -t` flag for the pipeline function `build_images`, either by providing it inside the pipeline script or by passing it when invoking a `devspace` command that runs the respective pipeline.

### via `build_images`
The [`build_images` function](../functions/README.mdx#build_images) provides a `--tag / -t` flag that can be passed multiple times to the function to specify one or more tags that DevSpace should use to tag the respective images.

```yaml title=devspace.yaml
version: v2beta1
pipelines:
  build: |-
    GIT_TAG_OR_HASH=$(git describe --always)
    # highlight-next-line
    build_images api -t latest -t $GIT_TAG_OR_HASH

images:
  api: ...          # see example above
  payments: ...     # see example above
  auth: ...         # see example above
```


### via `devspace build/dev/deploy/...`
DevSpace also provides a `--tag / -t` flag for pipeline-based commands such as `devspace build`, `devspace deploy` or `devspace run-pipeline [name]` which is passed to every `build_images` call.

```bash
devspace build -t latest -t $CUSTOM_HASH
```


## `tags` Field in `devspace.yaml`
Instead of using the `--tag` flags, you can also statically define tags for each image in your `images` section and `build_images` will respect them for each image independently:

```yaml title=devspace.yaml
version: v2beta1
pipelines:
  build: |-
    build_images --all

images:
  api:
    image: ghcr.io/loft-sh/devspace-example-api
    # highlight-start
    tags:
    - dev-latest
    - $(git describe --always)
    # highlight-end
  payments:
    image: ghcr.io/loft-sh/devspace-example-payments
    dockerfile: ./payments/Dockerfile
    context: ./payments/
    # highlight-start
    tags:
    - some-tag
    - another-tag
    # highlight-end
```
